Saturday, February 09, 2013

The Best of the Rest

Stately is a symbol font which can be used to quickly create a static map of the United States using only HTML and CSS.

Once you have downloaded the font you can create a map using uppercase A-Z and lowercase a-z to add states to the map. The font can then be styled as normal in CSS to adjust the size and color of the map. Individual states can also be styled making it possible to easily create a map where individual states or groups of states are highlighted.

OSM Buildings is a very impressive JavaScript library that can be used to create 3d models of buildings from Open Street Map data. The library uses a clever shading technique to make buildings appear 3d on a map.

The effect is very similar to the WebGL 3d buildings on Google Maps. The library comes with documentation and support for using the library with Leaflet and OpenLayers.